Telling a story in multimedia form is much the same as writing a story; it requires the basic elements of good grammar, sequence or flow, and interesting details. It’s often the case that students get so bogged down in the video production that they lose site of the story. To make sure the story is the focus, use a simple storyboard to organize their plans. When I storyboard fictional writing with students, I ask them to break the story into 4 parts - First, Next, Then and Last. For each part, they create a storyboard that includes 4 sections: "What will I see? (Scene setup)" "What will you say? (Script)" "What will you need? (Props and equipment) "What will each person do? (Group work plan)" By folding sheets of unlined paper into four sections, it's easy to create a story plan. Download a template for a storyboard (PDF).

After creating the story plan, then it’s time to create the multimedia, which could be a movie or a podcast. The students need to gather their props and equipment. I like to have one student be the “Quiet on the Set” person so that the others know when a group is recording.

Editing the video or audio to create a finished video or podcast is the next step. The students crop their video or audio, add titles and special effects to their video, add photos to their audio for a podcast, and pay attention to every detail. When they are done the video or podcast is saved.

Most important is to share their three-dimensional stories with others. Sometimes I have them share with another class or we post their stories on our class Web site.